


between two stilled hearts

by velvetvelour



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Azure Moon Route, F/M, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Gender-neutral Reader, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Multi, One Shot, POV Second Person, Platonic Relationships, Possible Implied Romantic Feelings, Post-Time Skip, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reader-Insert, References to Depression, because dimitri... poorly written as the issues may be, but definitely hints towards romance? i think? idk actually, byleth woke up very recently and feels awful basically, dimitri is kind of irredeemable as a person but its ok cuz i love him, idk it can be read either way, its written in second person but reader is byleth so. yeah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:20:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22676257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velvetvelour/pseuds/velvetvelour
Summary: You thought you should tell him why you were there, but you didn’t know. It was nothing consequential that attracted you, nothing that would aid him in his goals. Certainly nothing that you could put words to. Simply to be with him. To repent.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 35





	between two stilled hearts

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this just a little bit after i finished the azure moon route but never edited/posted it so here ya go! just a little drabble to get my angsty feelings out

You were reaching your limit.

He would not eat until malnourishment weakened his muscles beyond use, would not sleep unless his body stole his consciousness to demand it. His lesser wounds would fester at his own insistence and he would not speak, unless of death and appeasement. 

And knowing that you had left him, that you had been absent, idly resting at the foot of a cliff or drifting down the river as he ached and bled and fell into himself; there was no pain such as that. You might’ve helped him. Rather, it was your reckless descent that pushed him into his own. You could not take this anymore. You could not take this.

In the cathedral, he stood as he always did, and you didn’t know why. He spoke at times, muttering assurances and pleas to the rubble before him, but this time, he did not. In grave, imposing silence, he merely stood. 

Even with his hunched posture, he was so large, so stalwart and immovable to the eye that if he didn’t move his gaze to pierce into you a moment or so after you came to a halt beside him, you might’ve thought him a garnished statue. An atlas crumbling under the pressure of his own body.

...Yes, he looked at you, but he did not face you in any manner. One lasting eye ripped its gaze from the debris at his feet, shadowed and thin, but his face did not follow and tilt towards you warmly, reverently as it used to. Now, he looked at you as if to ask, “is there no end?” Not pleading for your help, but resenting your choice to approach him. Such is as you guessed, at least.

“Your… Majesty,” you tried, wondering if the years and the scars had imposed a distance between you that you must respect, but it felt awful on your tongue.  _ Dimitri,  _ that is who he was, who he’d always been to you, but now, though no more than the blink of an eye had passed for you, the thought of saying it… worried you. There was a sound in his throat, but you couldn’t decipher the meaning. 

You thought you should tell him why you were there, but you didn’t know. It was nothing consequential that attracted you, nothing that would aid him in his goals. Certainly nothing that you could put words to. Simply to be with him. To repent.

You love him, in some form of the word. To recognize it felt foreign, but you knew it to be true. It did not occur to you until your consciousness returned to you amidst the jagged rocks and thorns and urgency threw you to your feet and towards the monastery, only one thought on your mind, one face, one pair of sweet and aching eyes. Selfish, you thought,  _ selfish, _ selfish and irrational. So many companions, so much death and destruction that might’ve come to pass in however long it had been since your fall, but you wouldn’t think of that, wouldn’t think of anything until you’d set your eyes on him. And when you did, you almost wished you hadn’t. 

The thought was almost enough to stir your frozen heart again, something stinging behind your eyes, but then you remembered that you’d left Dimitri in silence for quite a few moments. You wondered, though, if he preferred it that way.

He wasn’t looking at you anymore, which might’ve meant that he was comfortable with your presence, or that he had decided to disregard you until you left. Either way would have been far kinder than the shouting and snarling that some who tried to speak with him were subjected to. 

You took one step, and then another, until you were partially in front of him. He stared at you again, and the dark circle beneath his eye roused something within you. Reminding you of times before, when Dimitri had cut much too deeply into his sleeping hours with training or studying and you’d admonish him, have him promise to make up for the lost time, and that gentle flush would bloom high on his cheeks and ears when he found your concern flattering.

Guilt ripped through your stomach. So much time stolen out from under you in but a moment as an unfathomable eternity passed for him. You would’ve sooner died than left him alone as you did. Had you known, perhaps you wouldn’t have… 

You might’ve helped him.

“Dimitri.”

You searched for any signs of hatred in his expression, of the anger and loathing that would confirm exactly what you thought; that you’d done this to him, that your absence when he most needed you had thrown him into this and there was no hope of forgiveness, no hope of seeing that serene warmth in his eyes just one more time, but there was nothing. Nothing at all. He didn’t even blink. 

You stepped closer, and nothing. Again, and nothing. You had to tilt your neck up to see his face properly now. If not for everything, you might’ve teased him about it.

His hair, so unkempt and shaggy and unlike you remembered, suited him just as much as it hurt you to behold. Your kind Dimitri, he has always been so handsome. His eye was covered somewhat, so you raised your hand to push the wayward strands aside, then paused, thinking better of it since he might not have wanted to be touched, but when he gave no reaction, you committed to the risk and continued on. Slowly, slowly. You paused just before his face, waiting for permission (or rejection, more likely), but he only looked at you. Perhaps through you.

Softly, like touching the wing of a butterfly, you swept the obstructing strands aside, and his gaze seemed stronger now, but not as bright as you remembered. Desperate but controlled, you moved your hand again, straightening out your fingers to touch his cheek, just once, just for a moment, but it’s then that he struck, and his gloved hand wrapped easily around your wrist, impeding you from the contact you so dearly hoped to be allowed. Despite his clumsy strength, he grasped you without pain.

“Do not treat me like the man you once knew,” he rasped, breaking his silence with an awful voice to hear. 

“What can I do,” you began, wondering why you sounded so breathless, “to make up for what I’ve done?”

“...What?”

There was disgust on his face, and you expected it, truly, but it pierced you like a blade nonetheless.

“I do not expect forgiveness, but I hope you will at least allow me to repay you.” Whatever ache might have plagued you, you reminded yourself, was nothing compared to his. Nothing at all.

He jerked his hand away from your wrist, angling himself towards the empty space beside you, and the sight of him recoiling from you as a rabbit might slip from the jaws of a wolf was nearly too much to bear.

“Leave me,” he said, loudly, his voice bouncing off of the broken cathedral’s walls, hitting you from every direction. “Never speak to me in such a way.” 

"I am sorry, Dimitri."

He winced again, your hands trembled. Nothing, nothing could be worse than this. 

"Listen to me!" he demanded.

"I cannot change what I have done, but now that I am here--”

_ "Quiet!  _ Does it please you to torment me so, you  _ vile _ \--?!" His voice trembled, then caught as a strangled groan belted from his throat. His balance wavered, shoulders swaying, and a hand rose violently to his own face, the butt of his palm colliding with his uninjured eye and his fingers pulling the front of his hair taut.

You recognized it. The same pounding headaches he’d suffered as long as you’d known him, haunting him persistently ever since that unmentionable day. Tea, you would've brought him tea before. Chamomile. Rubbed his hands, if he could bear to let you. 

The pain must've been especially wicked, perhaps even worse than the very worst you'd seen, because you didn't think he even noticed that you'd stolen his other hand until you'd already worked his glove from his wrist and started massaging your thumb in circles around his open palm. It was only a moment more before he froze, tensing up so tightly that you could feel it in the muscles of his hand. You were thankful that, at least, he had not forgotten. 

His hand was rough. His hands had always been rough, the fruits of his constant training, but not so dry and tough. You could feel how much time had passed merely in the texture of his skin, thick calluses and coarse, scratchy knuckles, surely busted open more times than one could count. Scars were littered around as well, sudden dips and swells of unnaturally smooth skin amidst the rugged textures, and you were certain the flesh on his bones was thinner. The sight, the feel of it makes your eyes sting.

Despite the words he'd thrown at you mere moments before, Dimitri did not stop you. Minutes passed, and in time the hand over his face began to loosen, then to fall. If you had glanced around, you surely would have seen the carefully astonished eyes of the monks and knights tending quietly to the cathedral, watching you care for the tempestuous king in the center of the ring of light created by the fallen ceiling above you. When you finally dared to look up from your work, his eye was glued to where your hands grasped his own.

"Whatever you want from me, you need only ask."

"Disgusting," he spat. "Do not waste such words on a beast."

"You are no beast.”

"Your memories blind you to what I have truly become.”

“A beast would not see friend from foe, or care for the souls of others. A beast would only slaughter whoever it might seize into its grasp, and I am well within yours right now.” You press your thumb harder into his palm, as if to punctuate your sentence, and his fingers curl around to grasp it. His hand is bigger than yours, and it’s hard not to notice, but his grasp remains moderate.

“Are you truly so foolish as to think yourself safe from me?” In but a moment, he could shatter your thumb. With his remarkable strength, perhaps even rip it clean off. You find it a rather silly gesture, however. “Countless have died by my hand, and even you will follow should you block my path.”

“I am always comfortable at your side.” You struggled to continue kneading his palm around his grip. “Though I will leave if you wish it.”

He gave something like a grunt. “So long as you remain an ally, I do not care what you do.”

That nearly provokes a smile. “Thank you.”

“Enough.”

And it really is enough. More than you deserve, perhaps. There is no telling what will become of him, what will become of you, and whether he will allow you at his side, but this moment now, standing with him like a distorted echo of distant times long past, is more than you could hope for. You would follow him into the pits of Ailell should he ask it of you. 

**Author's Note:**

> i originally intended to go in the tough love direction and have byleth give him sort of a stern-yet-emotional talking to about his abysmal behavior but... i guess the softness won out! comments are greatly appreciated!


End file.
